


The Kingdom of Sun and Moon

by smith_lyra



Series: The Assassin And The Captain (a stevebucky collection) [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Falling In Love, Guardian Angels, Love, M/M, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 11:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17661740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smith_lyra/pseuds/smith_lyra
Summary: Steve is the guardian angel of the Sun, Bucky is that of the Moon, and solar eclipses are the only times when they meet. It is, however, enough for them to fall in love. When one of them is asked to move to the Earth, what will the other do?(full prompt by @blueygreenylove on twitter in the end notes. includes spoilers)





	The Kingdom of Sun and Moon

In ancient times, people used to believe gods ruled nature. They created a god for the sun, a god for the moon, one for every planet, and any other thing they could not explain. They were not completely wrong, though they were not completely right either. As usual with humans, they got the general idea correct, but the specifics… dear god (pun intended, who said Fate couldn’t be funny?). There are, in fact, beings behind the affairs of nature, but they are no gods. They are more like guardians, for they have no real agency: they do my biding and my biding only. But this is not about me. This is about the Sun and the Moon. And its guardians.

The guardian of the Sun, also known simply as Sun. Contrary to popular belief, this guardian does not have to be particularly strong or tough. What matters is their emotional strength, their goodness of heart. It is not an easy job, and only few can have it. Way back when, the chosen one was young, small and sickly-looking, but there was harshness in his eyes, kindness in his words and love in his heart. Steve was a fighter, an idealist, with his righteous morals and inability to back down when he thought he was right. He had been a good fit since day 1.

The guardian of the Moon, or just Moon, is a different story. He has to be good at heart, of course, like any other guardian regardless of their position. But he can never be someone like Sun. When Steve was chosen, Bucky was too. Bucky was painfully realist, seeing the world exactly for what it was, and not what it could be, while at the same time being fascinated by the future. I remember he once bet against Earth about when her inhabitants would come for him. He won by a couple hundred years. Amazingly, the humans that landed on the Moon saw only the satellite, and not its guardian. He had the ability to hide in plain sight, like a ghost. He was better built than Sun though their eyes were almost the same shade of blue. Bucky had never wanted the place. He did not even think he’d ever get it, he did not consider himself good enough for it. But he was called to the guardians’ school, and before he knew it, he was being given the Moon.

They had both left their names behind to become Sun and Moon.

Steve had been ecstatic, for guarding the sun had been his dream ever since he was a little angel, watching it rise above his head every day while he asked his mother, excitement clear in his eyes, if he could wake the sun the next morning. His mother would ruffle his hair, and answer “One day you will, my son, I am sure of it.” The first day in his new position, it was his deceased mother that occupied his thoughts. Sarah would have been so proud.

Bucky not so much. For him, being Moon was something of a prison. Something he had to do, which was his duty, but that he did not necessarily want. His first day in his new position, he conformed himself to an eternity of loneliness. The guardians live alone and they have no visits, the Sun and the Moon were no exceptions.

Almost a year after they had been assigned their places, there was an event: a solar eclipse. The solar eclipse was the only time the guardians of the Sun and the Moon stayed front to front for more than a few seconds, since they had to align their assignees so Moon would block Sun from Earth. No one knew exactly when or why that tradition had started, but legend has it that once, a long, long time ago, before even I was here to see it, Earth had a fight with Sun (another Earth and another Sun, of course, not relevant to our story at all if not for this tale) and refused to face him. Moon had had to intervene before things got serious, originating a period humans called the Dark Ages. By now, humans have already made up all kinds of things about this age, but in fact it was much simpler: in those years there was no light. Why humans always feel the need to complicate, I do not know, but that is beside the point. This year I’m referring to, the solar eclipse went on as any other year. Sun (whose name had been Steve before) and Moon (whose name used to be Bucky, back when being Bucky still meant anything) stood before each other, and didn’t say a word. They had nothing to say to each other, and if they had they wouldn’t have been heard. So they just stared in silence for a few minutes until the moment passed and they had to carry on their paths, for another year or so, until the next solar eclipse. For the next few times it happened it was always the same: Sun and Moon would arrive, and with their jobs done, they’d do nothing but take each other in, expressing with their eyes what they never could with their words. Every time it was like that. Until, of course, it wasn’t.

Almost a hundred years after, when it came the moment when they’d stare into each other’s souls, Bucky’s Sun was missing. Instead there was someone else there, a new guy woman who glowed as orange as the Moon when lit by the Sun. Moon was immediately alert. A guardian of the Sun did not just leave his position, for the sun should always rise. The only two certainties in life were Sun and myself. It had happened once, and the accused had been immediately sentenced to eternal punishment. A guardian being temporarily replaced was even rarer. Therefore, when Moon did not see Sun that day he knew something had changed. He knew he would probably never see Sun again. The eclipse passed, and Moon carried on with his job, made even less agreeable by having lost the perspective of a few minutes with his Sun. Moon couldn’t even pinpoint why he missed the prospect of staring at someone for so long, when that someone was so far away still. But he did. He waited for another whole year, and right before the eclipse, he could feel the butterflies in his stomach, even though he knew his Sun (this other woman, surrounded by a bright glow, he wasn’t his Sun, just a poor replacement for it) would most likely not be there. And indeed he was not, but Moon would have none of that. He would find out about Sun if it was the last thing he did. So he took the only course of action he could, and he asked for an audience with me, the Mistress Of All Things Living And Dead. I am not someone whose company people appreciate and that they ask for hearings is most unusual. People say, for some reason unknown to me, that I am too imposing and give them no choice but to obey my will. I, you may have guessed, am Fate herself. And I imagine no one’s idea of a good time includes spending it with Fate. But I digress. When I was asked to be spoken to, by the guardian of the moon no less, to say I was surprised would have been the understatement of the century, especially when I was told he wanted to discuss something related to another guardian. I conceded to a hearing and travelled to the Moon, for its guardian could not leave its place. He wanted to know where Sun had gone so I told him he had been sent to the Earth to protect someone with a heart too pure, someone even I did not want to let suffer. He then asked me to let him join him on Earth. To that I could not give such a ready and sincere answer. I asked him for a moment to reflect upon his request, and it was granted.

Back in my refuge, I meditated until a clear answer came to my spirit. I had expected it to be a rather difficult task, but it ended up taking very little time. One year later, shortly before the next solar eclipse, his replacement was found – a man with wings red as burning fire – and his request granted. And if you, dear reader, are a human (why a human would read such a tale that they might never understand, I do not know) and are now thinking that one year is a long time to await the answer of a single question, please do try not to impose your ideas of time to a universe you do not yet know, and consider how curt a year must feel to beings to whom eternity is the blink of an eye.

Bucky was sent to the Earth, to a city called New York where he was collocated in the same university Steve had been assigned to (university is such a funny word: it conveys the idea that, if you got there, you will learn the universe when, in fact, humans know close to nothing about that subject and could never teach anything related to it).

He had been warned that Steve was physically different, Bucky himself had changed his appearance, and yet nothing could have prepared him to actually seeing those changes. Steve’s soft features had sharpened, his sickly frame had broadened and his chest looked like a delicious waffle (Bucky’s words, not mine, my vocabulary is far better), and still he recognised him immediately. Perhaps it was the goodness that oozed off his every pore, or possibly his eyes, that had stayed the exact shade of blue that Moon—pardon me, Bucky—would recognise anywhere.

Their eyes locked across the campus field and they held each other’s gaze for a moment until a young man who stood near Steve followed his look and stared Bucky down.

“Oh, he’s cute! He must be the new guy everyone was talking about at lunch. Should we go say ‘hi’?” Bucky overheard the man – he assumed it was Steve’s assigned human – saying.

Both Steve and his mission approached him and he flashed them a smile, “Hello, my name is Bucky. Art major.”

“So am I,” Steve replied excitedly, “We’ll be in the same class! Oh, and my name is Steve, by the way,” he added shyly.

Bucky knew all the already, of course. There was a reason why he had chosen Art. But the smaller man was talking and there was no time to stare at Steve for the moment, so he turned his gaze and his attention to him.

“And I’m Tony. Science and Space Studies major, nice to meet you, cute new boy.”

Flashing him a grin, Bucky gave him a polite flirty response and then excused himself, not before accepting an invitation for lunch. He had to look for his dorm room: the human he was assigned to protect was bound to be there by then.

Hours later, they all met for lunch.

“Hi, guys, this is Loki, he’s my roommate. Loki, Steve and Tony.”

Loki replied by sliding into the seat beside Tony with a cheeky grin.

“Hello, handsome. Buy me a drink?”

Bucky sat down to Steve and decided he was very happy with this sitting arrangement.

\------------//-------------

“Come on, guys, we need a name for our group!”

“A name. As in a boy’s band.”

“Please, not a boy’s band. I don’t wanna be in any boy’s band.”

“What about the Avengers?”

“Like the superheroes on TV? Kinda childish, no?”

“What superheroes?”

“You’ve never seen the Avengers? Come to my dorm tonight we’ll see them all.”

“He showed them to me too. You’ll be alright, they’re great movies.”

“Okay, we’re the Avengers, that’s settled. Now let’s go fix your lack of culture.”

\----------//-----------

“And finally the last group: Steve Rogers and James Barnes. Good luck with your projects, everybody, and don’t forget to hand them in by the end of next week.”

Steve and Bucky glanced warmly at each other. Thankfully, their assignees weren’t in their classes, they’d have hated if they had to ask the professor to change groups. This project together was a chance neither wanted to lose.

\-----------//------------

Their friendship grew and grew, and everyone knew they were head over heels for each other. Except, of course, for themselves. It was frustrating even to me to watch how they behaved around each other, just how aware they were of the other’s smallest needs, whilst at the same time knowing when to give the other space. And yet they would not make a move. They wouldn’t have recognised the other’s love if it had danced in front of them naked and with a label. It didn’t surprise me when Tony and Loki got bored and decided to take matters in their own hands (humans get bored very easily, and it is very difficult to surprise me in small common affairs such as love).

\-----------//-----------

“Loki, please, help me. They’re in my couch and they’re disgustingly in love.”

“Have they at least kissed already?”

“They aren’t even touching, Lokes!”

“I know just what to do.”

“Yeah?”

“Huh-huh. Let’s do this this the old way. We’ll need lots of mistletoe.”

“;)”

\-----------//------------

Days later, Tony was announcing the Biggest Christmas Party Ever at his house. He invited everyone, from freshmen to seniors, and almost the whole college said yes. It was going to be huge. Tony and Loki barely cared for it though. They were more preoccupied with hanging mistletoe in every single door in the house. Bucky and Steve eventually had to meet under some door at some point during the evening.

It happened quicker than they were expecting because the two Avengers arrived together found themselves under the mistletoe when Tony opened the front door. The young genius pointed up with a squeak, and Bucky and Steve followed his hand and looked back at each other with a confused shrug. I believe Tony almost killed them when he realised they did not know what being under the mistletoe meant, and he launched in a detailed explanation of the tradition. I almost laughed when he, outraged, asked what planet they were from. He stopped in the middle of a sentence when, after staring at his friend for a while, Bucky leant forward to capture Steve’s lips in a kiss. I cannot fathom how they did not reveal their identities right away, because as soon as their lips touched they could feel the powers of the Sun and the Moon themselves running in their veins. When they parted with a dazed look, Tony whooped and ran away screaming for Loki. Both Steve and Bucky completely lost it when Loki came running into the room and they met under the door. Their own trick backfired on them, but by the way they kissed as they were running out of air and the other’s mouth was an oxygen mask, I dare say they did not mind.

The rest of the part was awesome – by the Earth’s standards, of course – but none of the Avengers paid much mind to it: they had all suddenly found out that someone’s mouth was far more interesting.

\------------//------------

Months went by and one beautiful day (that’s how humans down there call to sunny, cloudless days, right? Actually don’t answer that, I don’t care), the guardians were out on a date when, at some point, Steve took Bucky’s hand and looked him directly in the eyes, that shade of blue he had always found so pretty.

“You have always been more beautiful than the Moon, Buck.”

“And you have always been more beautiful than the Sun, Stevie.”

Steve let out a laugh and playfully shoved his lover.

“You should have just told me!”

“Oh, of course, what a nice way to introduce myself: ‘Hi, Bucky, Art major, and have I mentioned I’m a guardian angel? I used to guard the Moon but then I left to look for my Sun and I think that’s you.”

“Maybe not then, but when we started dating! I’m sure you feel the same way I do when we kiss!”

“Well, you didn’t say anything either.”

“That is... a surprisingly fair point.”

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

“You should have just told me, I knew it was you,” Bucky mumbled before pulling him in for a kiss.

“I would have if you had at least given me a hint that you knew too, I didn’t want to sound crazy talking about guardian angels if you didn’t remember me!”

“You mean, a hint besides all the jokes about the Sun I’ve made in the last couple of months?”

“How was I supposed to realise that’s what you meant?”

With a fond grin, Bucky replied, “You really thought I wouldn’t know you after all time spent staring at you?”

“I look so different, love.”

“I had one hundred years to memorise your features. I could never forget them.”

Steve answered only with a nod, pulling him on for another kiss. When he pulled back, he muttered a soft I love you against Bucky’s lips.

“I love you too, Stevie.”

\----------//----------

“Steven Grant Rogers, will you marry me?”

A gasp and a bubbly laugh.

“Yes.”

\-----------//-------------

“My James. My Bucky. My Moon. I feel like I’ve known you for a hundred years, even though it was but a few months ago that we first talked. In your gaze you hold the key to the universe, in your brain lays the secret to happiness, and, like the Moon, only you can control the tide of my heart. I vow to be with you, in this world and others, in this universe and beyond, to eternity, way past our mortal life.”

“Steven Rogers, my dearest Sun. You brighten up my day, hmy life, my soul and, like the Sun, you never fail to rise, and with you rises also my entire being. I vow to be with you, in this world and others, in this universe and beyond, to eternity, way past our mortal life.”

And later that same day.

“Anthony Stark, Loki Laufeyson, I pronounce you husband and husband. You may kiss the groom.”

\---------//----------

 

They lived happily ever after for many years after that. The Avengers were inseparable and the two couples were, as content as I have ever seen any human be. I must admit I almost felt bad for having to intervene. But destiny is to be followed and even I, Fate, cannot always do as I wish. One day, the guardians had to leave. Their job was done, the danger had passed, and their humans were safe: time to go back to their worlds.

But even I am not so heartless as to separating them. No. They had to come back but they should remain together to infinity. They had, after all, made a vow. I assigned them to the Heavens. To be the Heavens was a rare treat reserved to those who had excelled in their previous roles, and Steve and Bucky deserved it.

They insisted on explaining everything to their friends before leaving and I allowed it. I figured opening our world slightly to the humans’ could not hurt. Perhaps we might even get a Starbucks up here, Bucky keeps going on about how he misses this weird, warm beverage called ‘coffee’.

Steve and Bucky are new guardians of the Heavens. The Avengers shall meet again someday.

This is the end of my story.

From me, you shall hear no more.

Love,

Fate

 

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by @blueygreenylove on twitter: Steve is the guardian angel of the (moon or sun) and Bucky's the guardian angel of the (moon or sun). They never see each other because they're always on opposite sides of the globe, but during every solar eclipse, they'd get a chance to look at each other and they'd just stand there staring, not saying a word but just admiring each other and taking each other in. Just like the moment started it would end, they'd have to wait another year to see each other. It stays like that for a little less than a hundred years, they're not allowed to leave their positions at all so that's all they can muster, even though they've practically fallen in love with one another, till one day when everything changes. One of them (preferably Steve) is asked to move to earth and take the form of a human to help out someone who has a heart too pure for the world and needs help. Bucky waits for him the year after on the day of the solar eclipse but he doesn't show up, so he does it again for the next year, and when he doesn't see him, he asks until he finds out he moved to earth, so he asks if he could move there as well, and waits for an answer. He finally gets it, right before the third solar eclipse, and he's sent to the exact same place Steve was sent to, same city and same uni and all. The twist is, he's grown in those years he hasn't seen him, has finally been given permission to move onto the age he wants to be, so he chooses to look 22. He has longer hair and sharper features, a lot about him has changed, and that's why he's excited to see Steve. He knows him right when he sees him, the blue of his eyes immediately catching his, and he knows Steve knows it too but neither talk about it when they're set up for partners for a group project. (The people they've become friends with (the ones they've been guarding) don't go to the same class so they don't have to argue) and they're both just amused. They get to talk to each other, but both lie about their true identity. What are they supposed to say "oh yeah I'm a guardian angel sent to look after this person"? Of course not. So they become friends, and the fact that they're hopelessly in love is so obvious but neither makes a move. It stays like that till one kisses the other and both literally feel the power of both the moon and sun run through their veins. They slowly (okay not so slowly) get into a relationship, and it stays like that, hiding their true identities even though both see right through each other, till the day Steve calls Bucky "You've always been more beautiful than the moon" and Bucky goes "and you've always been more beautiful than the sun" and they kiss and giggle and have the most adorable fight (an overload of them being cute to each other that they call a fight basically) ever and they keep on going "really thought I wouldn't know you after all that time?" and "you could've just told me you idiot but I knew it was you". And after almost a hundred years of not saying it they say I love you. We follow them a bit more as they start taking it further. The people they guard get so happy for them and they get engaged, stay like that for a while, and get married. So they stay like that till one day both are asked to leave earth, and they expose their true identities to the ones they were guarding (who have gotten married maybe as well) and then they leave. They're told that they've done a wonderful job and that everyone always knew they'd marry each other, and they move onto being guardians of the heavens. Together.


End file.
